It's A Wonderful Unlife
by Lucy Van Pelt
Summary: My take on the Frank Capra classic. Whistler shows Spike what his life would have been like if he had never been dead


            Spike sits all alone at the bar of the Bronze.  It's Christmas and he is reminded of the Scrooge in him.  Bah humbug.  Christmas.  Time for the lemmings to flock to the mall and overextend their Visa limits.  Time for Perry Como specials on TV.  Oh, wait.  The bugger died.  Bugger all!

            He orders a Guiness.  The beer arrives, appropriately foamy and ready for consumption.  He grabs it, thoughtfully, regarding the brown foam curiously, noticing how it's being devoured from the ground up.  God, he misses his killing days.

            As he's taking his first sip, he notices a gent at the end of the bar.  Fedora, sheepish look, unstylish clothing.  The bloke tries to engage Spike's eyes.  Spike dives into the snack bowl for another honey roasted peanut.  They're so hard to find…

            The man sidles up to Spike.  "Hello, friend,"  he says, plopping himself beside Spike.

            "Hmmm.  Friend.  Sod off!"  Spike says angrily, still searching for the illusive honey roasted nut.

            "Now, now, Spike.  Don't get huffy.  I'm here to help you."

            Spike raises a curious brow.  "Help me?"

            "Yeah, I do that.  I don't now why.  I just do.  It's something like…I guess, a calling."  He extends his hand.  "The name's Whistler.  And no, my mother is not the subject of the painting, which is called, by the way, 'Arrangement in Black and Gray'"

            "Art history major?"

            "No.  I just know a lot of stuff."

            "Like what?"

            "Well, I know that you're in pain right now."

            Spike takes a sip of his drink.  "You don't know a sodding thing about my pain."

            "I do.  You're in love with the Slayer."

            Spike stops mid gulp.  "How did you know?"

            "Oh, come on, friend.  It's written all over you."

            "Yeah?"  looks at the back of his duster.  "I don't see a 'Kick Me!  I'm a Slayer Lover' sign on my back."  
            "I know things about you.  I know that you were sired by Drusilla in an alleyway in London."

            Spike blinks.  "How did you know that?"

            "Well, Mr. Short Term Memory, let me remind you.  I know a lot of stuff.  I wasn't in the alleyway when Dru made you, but I can see her permanent stain on you.   I would say she poisoned you, but Cecily did that before Dru."

            "You don't know what you're talking about,"  Spike says, taking a foam-laden sip of his drink.

            "Spike, come on.  You live your heart.  You're ruled by it."

            "I don't love the Slayer!"  He adjusts his jaw.  "I like her."

            "You love her."

            "All right,  So I do love her.  What business is it of yours?"

            "I'm here because I couldn't save Angel.  You know what he's doing now, don't you?"

            "He runs a detective agency with bleedin' Cordelia Chase in L.A."

            "Yeah.  Can you imagine a fate worse than that?"

            "Actually I can,"  he stiffens as he takes another drink.  "Sometimes I wish…"  he shifts his beer between his hands and says in a slightly muted voice, "Sometimes I wish I had never been turned."

            "Oh, no, man.  Don't say that.  You don't mean it.  If you only knew what things would be like if you had never been turned--"  the man stops and looks thoughtful for a minute.  He strokes his scruffy chin and stares off into space as an idea seems to form in his head.  "Wait…wait, that might be just the thing.  Yes!  That's the ticket!  OK, Friend.  You got your wish.  You were never turned."

            A sudden wind whips up, fluttering the cocktail napkins on the bar.  Spike looks up to see if someone has turned on the ceiling fan, but it remains still.  He looks over at the door to see if someone has opened it.  It remains closed.

            "What the hell?"  Spike mutters.

            "Sorry.  Cheap effect, I know.  But something like that requires a touch of the supernatural."  

            "Something like what?"

            "Something like you getting your wish."

            "What wish?"

            "You were never turned."

            Spike looks at him sheepishly.  "Oh, bloody hell!"

            "See for yourself.  Try to vamp out."

            "Easy enough,"   Spike says.  "Right now snapping your neck and guzzling a few pints out of you sounds like the greatest idea since High Definition Television."  He summons a growl from deep within.  It comes out as a slight meow.  Embarrassed, he tries again.  Same results.  He touches his face.  The human features are still there.  He feels his teeth.  Blunt as a baby's.  "It's hard to do it on demand sometime.  It's probably all the alcohol."

            "You can try all night if you like, you'll just end up making faces like Jim Carrey.  You were never turned, remember?"

            "You mean, I'm not a vampire anymore?"

            "You're not anything anymore.  You died in that alleyway in London 120 years ago."

            "But I was brought back—

            "Never happened, my friend."

            Spike regards the stranger with incredulity.  "Somebody must have…somebody put something in this drink."  He looks down.  The glass is gone.  "Oh, bloody hell!  No someone's nicked my Guiness."

            "You didn't order a drink."

            "Oh, shut it, mate.  I was sittin' here having a bleedin' Guiness and now it's gone."

            "You've really got some memory problems, Spike.  I thought Alzheimer's was a uniquely human thing.  I told you.  You were never turned.  You don't exist."

            "Look, I'm getting' bloody put out with you.  You're trying to play some sort of…mind games with me.  And if you think it's going to work, you don't know me as well as you say."

            "I'm not playing any games with you.  I simply granted your wish and now you're getting all Hostile 17 on me."

            Spike cocks his head at the mention of his former Initiative name.  _This bloke must work for Cleo, he thinks._

            "Just leave me alone.  I was having a perfectly wonderful, miserable evening before you came 'round and made everything Twilight Zone."  He reaches into his pocket.  "I'm just going to have myself another pint of Guiness and try to forget you were ever here."  He searches the pocket, wondering where his cash went.  

            "You're looking for Xander's money?"

            "Well, yeah.  I make regular withdrawals from the Bank of Xander."

            Whistler shakes his head.  "It's not there."

            "So, aside from being an annoying poof, you're a pickpocket as well?"

            "I didn't have to steal it.  It was gone the minute you got your wish.  You don't know Xander and Xander wouldn't know you from Adam.  You remember Adam, don't you?  The monster you likened to Tony Robbins?"  Whistler begins to laugh, shaking his finger at Spike, "I had to giggle at that one myself."

            Spike narrows his eyes.  "You know, you're a queer one.  And I hope not in the modern sense of the word."

            At this moment, two well-built arms fall on the space beside Spike.  He follows the forearms to the bulging biceps, capped by a wild print of a Hawaiian shirtsleeve.

            "Well, well, speaking of queers.  If it's not my old friend Harris."

            Xander stares back at Spike with zero recognition in his eyes.  "Do I know you?"

            "Oh, sod it, Harris.  Just because I lifted your hard-earned minimum wage paycheck from you—

            Xander's reaction is swift.  He grabs Spike by the lapels of his duster and brings him to his feet.  "You stole my paycheck?"

            "Yeah.  Don't I always?"  Spike sputters.

            "Look, I don't know who you are or why the hell you think dressing like a member of ZZ Top is the 'in' thing to do, but if you've stolen my money, you better give it back or I'll snap your wiry, compact little body like a number two pencil."

            "He doesn't have your money,"  Whistler speaks up.  "He only thinks he does."

            Xander looks over at the man.  Slowly, he removes his hands from Spike's duster and checks his wallet furiously.  Ones, fives, tens, twenties, they're all there.  Relieved, he tucks his wallet back into his back pocket.  

            "You had me going there for a second.  I work too hard at the Stop and Gulp to have some Billy Idol clone take it away from me."  

            "Wait, wait…Stop and Gulp?  What happened to the Village People job you had, Harris?  You're not playing 'round with the big trucks and the forklifts anymore?"

            Xander raises an eyebrow.  "What are you talking about?  I've been at the Stop and Gulp for almost a year now.  I'm the Assistant Manager, thank you."

            At that time, a feminine voice sounds.  "Xander, what are you doing?  I need that Bloody Mary.  This hangover's kicking into overdrive."

            Spike turns to see a small girl with flame red hair.  She looks like Willow and sounds like Willow…but there's something about her that's not Willow.  There are deep, dark shadows under her eyes.  Her hair is unkept, falling in matted clumps on either side of her face.  Her clothes are a wrinkled mess, as though she pulled them from the clothes hamper right before she went out.  And she smells like she look a bath in a giant gin and tonic.

            "I'm getting it, Will.  Go back over to the table.  I'll be there in a sec.  Slim Shady here seems to want to start something with me."

            "Hello there, Will.  You're looking…not very well tonight,"  Spike says.

            Spike hears Willow ask Xander quite audibly, "Who's that?"

            "I don't know.  He acts as though he knows me and it's freaking me out."

            "I was worried.  I've met a lot of people lately that I don't remember,"  Willow says, shaking her head in dismay.

            "I know, Will…I know,"  Xander says consolingly, patting her arm.  "Now go have a seat.  I'll get our drinks."  He calls for the bartender.  "One double scotch, neat.  One Bloody Mary."

            "Harris!  Since when did you and Willow start doin' the road show of _Barfly_?" Spike asks.

            "Look, where do you get off calling me Harris?  I've never seen you before in my life."

            "You must be hittin' the sauce too much.  The last four brain cells you had seem to have given up their fight and have surrendered to the bottle."  When Spike's words garner a confused look, he says, "Me Spike, you Xander."

            "Whatever, dude,"  he harrumphs and takes his drinks over to the far corner where Willow sits patiently.  

            Spike shakes his head.  "What have _I _ever done to him?"

            "Well, you kidnapped him, threatened him, taunted him, made cracks at his masculinity numerous times.  But he doesn't know anything about that.  This is the first time you've ever met."

            "Oh, yeah, right.  Because I was never turned."  Spike reaches into his pocket and rifles for his cigarettes, which, like the money are not there.  "What's happened to those two, anyway?"  He quickly adds a disclaimer.  "Not that I care."

            "Life happened to them.  After Tara went home to her family after the demon attack—

            "Wait, wait…what demon attack?"

            "The one at the Magic Box.  The bone marrow sucking demons?  Tara's family took her home and Willow never heard from her again."

            "But I stepped in and showed everyone that she wasn't a demon."

            "You weren't there, Spike.  There was no one there to prove that Tara wasn't a demon.  Willow's heart was broken.  She hasn't been the same since."

            "That's rot.  I know I was there.  I punched the bint's nose."

            "Spike, I'm going to say this again loudly and in the King's English so that there will be no questions.  YOU DO NOT EXIST!"

            "Oh, right, right.  The whole 'never been turned thing.'  All right, I'll play along, since everyone around me seems to have taken a colossal dose of LSD.  So what's happened to Harris?"

            "Well, his money-loving ex-demon girlfriend realized that he was going nowhere fast, so she dumped him and ran off with her ex-boyfriend, the hideous troll."

            "But how did I cause that?"

            "Don't take this as flattery, Spike, but Xander has always kind of looked up to you in a safe, heterosexual way.  The whole reason he started working out was that he wanted to be as strong as you.  He's always felt threatened by you.  You know Buffy is the elusive love of his life too."

            "Tell him to take a number,"  Spike chuckles.  "This isn't my scene anyway.  Haven't been to Willy's in eons.  What say we check out the action on the other side of the tracks.  I think Willy still keeps my barstool warm for me."  

            "All right, but it won't be any different there."

            "Oh, I'm legend there.  The demons hate me, the vampires fear me.  Ah.  Home sweet home."

            Outside the Bronze, Spike searches frantically for his DeSoto which he swears he left parked beside the fire hydrant.

            "Bloody hell!  The fuzz towed my ride!"

            "You don't have a DeSoto.  You never did."

            "Oh, foiled again by the never been turned thing.  All right.  So we'll walk, then.  I can still walk even if I have never been turned?"

            "Yeah, walking is still allowed.  You just don't know what you might be walking into next."

            Willy's is still the collection cup of Sunnydale's residual derelicts, Spike is pleased to see.  And his customary stool awaits his denim-clad arse.  There are no distracting Christmas decorations here.  No cheery Santa's, no strings of white lights draping the bar, no Bing Crosby on the juke box.  Here it's still a safe place to Bah Humbug and find a chorus of folks responding in kind.

            "Now this is more like it!"  Spike says, strutting over to the bar.  "Willy!  Pour me a shot of O-neg.  Make it a double shot.  I'm feeling lucky tonight."

            The nebbish bartender is wiping out a shot glass with a filthy rag.  "You got it.  Eighty-five bucks."

            "Eighty five?  Bloody hell!"

            "That's what it costs.  Been a long time since a blood drive.  Supplies are running low."

            Spike looks hungrily at Whistler.  "Can you spot me just this once?  I'll pay you back in a week.  Harris should be getting his next check by next Thursday."

            "Yeah, I'll spot you.  It'll be worth it just to see your reaction."  Whistler opens his wallet to a wad of bills and sets them, carefully, one by one, on the bar, counting carefully.

            Spike drums his hands on the bar.  "Mmm…mmm…mmm!  O-neg.  Been a long time.  A negative it not without its charms and B positive is good for a rainy day, but nothing beats O-Neg for sheer flavor."

            The blood flows from the jigger into the shot glass.  Spike licks his lips.

            "Be prepared, friend.  You're in for a shock,"  Whistler warns.

            "Oh, to hell with you."  Spike tips the drink in Whistler's direction.  "Bon appetite."  He tilts the shot glass, allowing the fluid to flow down his tongue straight down his throat.  His eyes fill with tears.  His body is wracked with waves of revulsion.  Before he knows it, he's gagging and spitting.  "Bloody hell!  This tastes awful!"

            "It's your first taste of blood.  And you're not a vampire."

            "You're off your bird.  I've been a vampire for a century.  Willy here is tryin' to cheat us with some orangutan crap.  And bad orangutan crap.  Willy, now even you are against me?"

            Willy shrugs.  "Why would I be.  You're a paying customer.  And that's good O-Neg.  Fresh from the veins of a Mormon girl so you know it's pure."

            "This is swill.  You get me the good O-Neg.  The kind you keep locked up for special occasions."

            "That's all I got."

            "Willy, you're holding out on me.  This is your old pal Spike talking."

            "Hey, you're not my pal.  I've never seen you before in my life."

            "Not you too, Willy?  I thought I could at least count on you for a spot of recognition."

            "This is the first---and the last time I'll ever see you here.  If you're going to insult my drinks, get the hell out!"

            "Now, Willy.  Don't get testy.  You saw the cabbage in Fedora boy's purse.  We can be friends, can't we?  I drink other stuff.  That Absolut Mandarin, for instance.  Got potatoes and citrus.  Good for what ails ya.  Pour me a shot of that."

            "That'll be another eight-five."

            "What, do you have to go and steal the potatoes from a starving Irishman and pick the oranges yourself?  You should be reported to the proper authorities for price fixing, you sniveling little gnat."

            "I'm a small businessman.  I get all kinds of breaks."

            "Oh, I'll give you a break!"  Spike starts to climb over the bar.

            "Spike, calm down,"  Whistler says, catching him by the bottom of his duster.  "There's nothing you can do to him."

            "I'll punch him into the Stone Age, I will."

            "You can't.  You don't have the strength."

            "What the hell are you talking about?  I could take out an army of Willy's with one roundhouse kick."

            "You could…if you had been turned.  But you've never been turned, so…"

            "I'm getting bloody sick of this never been turned crap!"

            "You asked for it."

            "Yeah?  So did you!"  He rails back for a good punch to Whistler's jaw.  The result, a row of cracked knuckles on his left hand.  "Ow!  That bloody hurt!"

            "Funny.  On my end I just felt a tickle."

            "Hey!"  Willy calls from behind the bar.  "If you two pixies are going to rumble, take it outside."

            "Don't threaten me, little man.  You'll get worse,"  Spike growls.

            "Oh, worse than a tickle.  Oooh…I'm all scared now.  Hey, guys.  Platinum boy here is going to tickle me!"

            There is a great yelp from the crowd as all the patrons raise their drinks in a mock cheer.

            As humiliation makes Spike's head glow in electric red, he happens to notice the doors are swinging open.  And a tall man in a faded tweed suit is coming into the bar.  His face is sallow; his eyes are disappearing into the cragginess of his aging face.  The glasses he wears are repaired with a slash of white tape over the left lens.  The right lens is cracked.  But when he removes the glasses and begins to clean them nervously, Spike knows who it is.  

            "Hey, rummy!"  Willy says.  "Didn't I tell you not to come in here anymore?"

            The man staggers and replaces the glasses on the bridge of his nose.  He staggers more when Willy aims a stream of seltzer water at him.  He doesn't bother to wipe the water from his face.  He just stands there, taking it all in, as the laughter blares around him in stereo.

            Spike leaps from the barstool to grab the man by his shiny coat.  "Rupert.  Rupert, what's come over you?"

            Giles tries to focus on the strange man in front of him.  "Who…who are you?"

            "Don't you know me?  It's Spike.  I lived with you, remember?"

            "No…no…I don't know you…"  he says in a voice full of sobs.  "I don't even know myself these day since…since…Buffy…"  Tears cascade from his eyes.  He doesn't bother to hide them.     

            _Buffy!  _"Since Buffy what, Rupert?  Since Buffy what?"  Spike demands, suddenly terrified.

            Whistler lays a comforting hand on Spike's back.  "Friend, you had to find out sooner or later."

            "Find out what?  Rupert!  What is he talking about?"

            Giles sinks into a fit of despair, sobbing uncontrollably.  "I couldn't stop them.  I couldn't even see them."

            "The Le'ach demons, Spike.  He's talking about the Le'ach demons,"  Whistler says.

            "What about them?  Buffy and I killed them…"  He is seized then by realization.  _If I wasn't there to reveal that Tara was not a demon…then I wasn't there at all!  _"Oh, God…Buffy…"

            "Yeah, Oh God, Buffy is right,"  Whistler says.  "Strange, isn't it?  How one person's unlife can affect so many people?"

            "Where is she, Whistler?  Where is she?"

            "She's in the cemetery,"  Whistler replies.

            "She's slaying, isn't she?  She's out for a bit of dust the vamps tonight.  Please tell me she's out doing her job!"

            Whistler demurs.  "I wish I could."

            Spikes takes off for the door.  _She's in the cemetery…she's slaying tonight_, he tells himself.  _It's Christmas time.  Oh, what fun to ride and sing a slaying song tonight…_

He hears Whistler calling after him as he runs.  He doesn't care.  He's got to get to the cemetery.  Buffy may need his help.  She's always been so bloody independent, pretending she doesn't need anyone.  But she needs him, he's sure.  She always relies on him.  When Dawn was missing, she sent all the others out in pairs and claimed him for her right hand man.  When it came time to defeat Glory, she asked him to go to her house and collect the weapons.  "Come in, Spike," he remembers her saying.   The sweetest words he has ever heard.  And when it came time to leave her dearest little sister in someone's care, she chose him to protect her…until the end of the world.  She has always needed him.  She has never once told him that she even likes him, but in those out-stretchings of need, she lets him know that he is important to her, that he is someone she can rely on time after time because he…

            The cemetery is quiet.  There is no one moving among the gray, silent tombs.  There is a chill in the air, not like a Christmas chill, but one of absence.  Loneliness.  The night is dark as jet and Spike finds that the preternatural sight he has always had is failing him as he stumbles over tomb after tomb.  A wind whips up again, a little like the one that swept through the Bronze earlier.  It stirs the leafless trees over head.  It shakes up the silence.  And Spike finds himself in front three evenly matched tombstones that seem to be calling for him.  A bit of moonlight illuminates the first.  "Joyce Summers, Beloved Mother."  Moonlight caresses the second one as well.  He reads the first name and then he can't read anymore.  "Buffy."

            "No,"  he says as the wind tears around him.  "No!  She's not dead.  This is…this is one of those fever dreams that humans have.  I've gotten so bloody close to my humanity that I'm now feeling human.  That has to be it."

            "It's a dream you asked for, Spike,"  Whistler says behind him.  "You wished that you had never been turned.  I granted that wish to show you that you really had a wonderful unlife."

            Spike can't bring himself to look at the third tombstone.  He knows what he's going to find inscribed on the granite there.

            "Pretty maids all in a row,"  Whistler says.  "Buffy was killed by the Le'ach demons.  It was sort of an unfair fight.  Three invisible demons against one tiny Slayer who had the strength to kill them, if only she had help."

            "And Dawn?"  he ventures, even though he can't bear to hear the answer.

            "She had to jump into the portal to save the world.  But she was very proud.  Her last words were about Buffy and how she was so happy to be following in her sister's footsteps.  And with a fleet of alcoholic Scoobies to defend her, Glory's victory almost came about if it hadn't been for the will of a small girl who wanted so much to please her sister, even after her death."

            Spike squeezes his eyes shut, stopping the flow of tears.  "I should have been there.   For all of it."

            "Yes, but you were never turned.  So you haven't been around for one hundred and twenty years."

            Spike imagines that there is a similar tomb to him, draped with ivy, in a graveyard in England.  He steps towards Buffy's grave, touching the cold marble, realizing his hand his warmer than the stone.

            There is a sound now from the underbrush.  A hungry growl.  In the clearing now is a newly-minted vamp, wearing the powder blue tuxedo his loved ones thought he would want to be buried in.  He claws at the darkness, smelling blood.  Fe, fi, fo, fum.  He smells the blood of an Englishman.

            The vampire starts to approach Spike.  Spike at first is nonplused but then he thinks, _I've never been turned…my strength is gone…oh, bloody hell!      _

            "Now, look.  You're dealing with an innocent here.  I'm a babe in the woods,"  Spike says, shrinking back.  "Just the sort you hungry neophytes are after.  Scratch that then."

            The vampire lunges for him.  Before he can make contact, Whistler has the attacker in a half nelson.

            "Run, Spike.  I don't know how long I can hold him off,"  he says, struggling.

            Spike stands there, torn between helping the guy and wanting so much to escape.  

            "For God's sake, Spike!  Run!"  Whistler yells.

            Spike finds that his feet are just as swift when he takes off.  And the tears that he shed before are drying on his face and are now being replaced by new ones as he heads for the gates of the cemetery.  He runs and runs until he is down the street, running through the sheen of rain-slicked sidewalks.  No snow at Christmastime, but lots of rain.  He jumps through puddles as he continues to cry.  He takes a detour, running for the bridge over the sewer line.  It worries him that Whistler hasn't followed him.  He's the only one who can save him; he's the only one who has known him, apparently, since day one.

            He pauses over the railing of the bridge, his hands gathered together almost in prayer.  "Whistler!  Help me, Whistler!  Get me back again!  I want to be undead again!  Oh, please, let me be undead again!  Oh, God, let me be undead again.  I want to be undead…I want to be undead."  He leans his head against the railing of the bridge, sobbing loudly.  He feels he is all alone.  But then he hears a horn.  A car horn.  He spins around in the direction of the noise, seeing a red BMW coming his way.  Yes, he can see that it's red.  Even in the dark.

            A figure emerges from the driver's side.  It is Giles, just as tweedy and well-put-together as always.  He jerks his spectacles from his nose.

            "For God's sake, Spike, what are you doing?"  he asks.

            Spike approaches him warily.  "Giles, do you know me?"

            "Unfortunately, yes.  Now, what on earth are you doing?  I thought I saw you praying and I was most disturbed."

            "Rupert, can you give me a lift?  I need to get to Buffy's house."

            "Why don't you take a cab?  I'm certain that you have some of Xander's paycheck lining your pockets."

            "Xander's money!  Xander's- -"  he reaches around in his front pocket, discovering the roll of tens and twenties he snagged from Xander's wallet earlier that day.  "Well, what do you know about that!  Merry Christmas, Giles!"

            Giles stiffens.  "Em…yes…Merry Christmas to you, em, Spike."

            "Rupert, I know you think I'm off my beam, but you don't know what I've been through tonight.  God, if you only knew.  Please.  Take me to Buffy's house.  I'll pay you anything you want."

            "You're going to pay me to take you to Buffy's?  I won't be party to your animalistic pantings over the Slayer—

            "Fine, then just take me to my DeSoto.  It's parked outside the Bronze."

            "You know, Spike.  You really shouldn't drive drunk.  It's not that I care for your bleached blond demon self out on the road, but I do sympathize with those hapless folks who encounter your vehicle with you are so obviously impaired behind the wheel."

            "I'm not drunk, Giles.  Tonight I'm full of un-life.  I'm as OK to drive as a Mormon girl fresh from the Tabernacle.  Hell, I could sing Christmas Carols.  You know any?  _Hark!  The Herald Angels Sing_ comes to mind.  I always liked that one."

            "You should stick to blood, Spike.  The spirits make you almost likeable."

            Spike takes the passenger seat beside Giles.  On the radio, Perry Como sings _Hark!  The Herald Angel Sing_ and Spike sings along in pitch perfection, much to Giles' chagrin.

            "_Peace on earth and mercy mild/God and sinners reconciled_,"  Spike sings loudly.  "_Joyful all ye nations rise/join the triumph of the skies…_

            Giles, not to be out-done, joins in, "_With angelic hosts proclaim.   Christ is born in Bethlehem_."

            And the two sing together as the DeSoto appears on the curbside of the Bronze. 

"_Hark, the herald angels sing!  Glory to the new born king_!"  

            "I love ya, Rupert!"  Spike says, impressing a kiss on the Watcher's forehead.  "I'll remember this night forever."

            As Spike starts off for the DeSoto, Giles thinks to himself, _Yeah.  Drunk as a Soho dweller after dawn.  But so sweet.  I think he means well._

            Spike's DeSoto roars up to Revello Drive.  Inside the Summers' house he can hear _Merry Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)_ on the stereo.

_They're singing _Deck the Halls__

_            But it's not like Christmas at all_

            I remember when you were here 

_            And all the fun we had last year_

            He can't see Buffy yet, from the outside.  He goes towards the front door, as it bulges with holiday activity inside.  He can almost smell the little smokeys, the pizza rolls, the chips and dip.

            He knocks, knowing that he probably could just barge right in.  He has been invited before, after all.

            The door comes open.  And inside stands a teen-aged girl with brown hair and puppy dog eyes.  There is instant recognition.

            "Spike!  What are you doing here?"  she queries.  

            "Little Bit!"  Spike says falling into her wary arms.  "Oh, my God.  Are you real?  Are you here?"

            "Yeah, you, being weird.  Of course I'm here.  Now, what are _you _doing here?"  Dawn asks.

            "Yeah, what are you doing here?"  a comically masculine voice pipes up.  

            Spike turns to see the hulking form of Xander, fully dolled out in his best Starsky and Hutch garb.  _What is with the brown leather jacket circa 1978?_  Spike asks himself.  

"Harris?"   Spike sniffs the air in front of Xander's slack mouth.   Bit of Starbucks.  And Anya's essence.  No booze there.  "Where's Red?"

"I'm here,"  Willow says, appearing at Xander's side with a cup of red punch in her hands.  She wiggles a welcoming hand in front of her smiling, ever optimistic face and lifts the punch cup in Spike's direction.

"Good idea, Willow, a toast."  Xander takes the cup from Willow's hand and raises it into the air.  "To my non-friend Spike.  The most evil guy in town."

            Buffy is making her way down the stairs.  She is dressed in a glittering halter-top and a pair of hip-hugging jeans.  She is beautiful as always.  Her pout unfurls to Spike like a red carpet for him to advance upon with VIP status.

            He kisses her.  And as much as she is taken aback, there is something else in her eyes.  Acceptance, welcoming, a sense that this was coming to her.  She may as well be Jesus as a baby, not knowing about such things as crucifixion.

            "You know, you weren't invited,"  Buffy says.

            "I know," he says.  "But aren't you glad I barged in?"

            "I'm not sure,"  she says, slightly breathless and looking for more in his eyes other than the usual blood lust she's accustomed to.  "Kiss me again."

            And he does.

            _Should auld acquaintance be forgot _

_            And never brought to mind?_

_            Should auld acquaintance be forgot_

_            In days on auld lang syne?_

            Merry Christmas, B/S shippers everywhere!


End file.
